The investment banker Jamie Dimon caused a stir when hedeclared recentlythat Bitcoin will collapse because it is “worth nothing.” Bitcoin’s current market value, he claimed, is driven almost entirely by speculation, rather than by any real and present intrinsic value that Bitcoin actually provides.

Casting aside the debate over whether Bitcoin has intrinsic value or not, it seems fair to say that Dimon doesn’t know the cryptocurrency market well. If he did, he might have noted that Bitcoin is only one of dozens of major tokens available. Some tokens were designed with intrinsic value as a specific goal.

Background

Particl, which wascreated last spring, is building a decentralized eCommerce platform, a framework for third party apps, and a suite of privacy tools to go with it.

PART solves various privacy problems associated with BTC, such as the ability of third parties to trace transactions. Adding multiple cryptographic proofs like Ring Signature Confidential Transactions (RingCT) and Confidential Transaction (CT) plus trustless mechanisms like MAD escrow, Particl provides 100 percent anonymity to people who buy and sell using PART.While the Particl privacy platform and upcoming Marketplace supports most major cryptocurrencies, PART serves as its utility token.

PART and Intrinsic Value

The value of Bitcoin has risen astronomically over the past several years in part because people believe Bitcoin will one day be widely used and provide services that other forms of currency cannot. For this reason, the growth in value of Bitcoin has far outpaced actual Bitcoin adoption.PART is different. PART’s value is based on more than the potential future worth of the Particl Platform or PART tokens. People who own PART tokens derive immediate benefits from them, including the following.

Token Flexibility

PART is a flexible cryptocurrency, especially with respect to the level of privacy and anonymity users wish to have.

Voting Rights

PART ownership confers voting rights within the PART community. The future development of the Particl Project and its privacy platform is decided by users who own PART tokens. In this sense, PART tokens have an intrinsic value that is absent from a cryptocurrency like bitcoin, where the ability to propose or vote on platform changes is not linked to coin ownership.

Passive Income

PART tokens generate passive income for their owners through working for the network (staking) and from fees collected from privacy DApps built on the platform like the upcoming Marketplace. PART is an inflationary token, therefore its supply increases by 5 percent in the first year and decreases by one percentage point until the fourth year, when the inflation rate reaches 2 percent. Inflation is then maintained at a 2 percent rate indefinitely.

Utility Coin

Default transactions on the Particl network are pseudo-anonymous like Bitcoin. The network is Proof of Stake (PoS) so only default and stealth addresses can stake PART. Exchanges and services also transact with the network using public PART addresses.

If they wish, PART users can benefit from features like RingCT in order to gain a privacy experience equivalent to using a token like Monero, which created RingCT. Alternatively, they can use PART tokens with CT blinding features applied to hide amounts sent between addresses.This flexibility adds to PART’s intrinsic value because it allows PART to be used for different sorts of transactions and is 100 percent based on user preference. If — as proponents of Bitcoinpointed outin response to Dimon’s criticisms — Bitcoin provides intrinsic value in part by enabling transactions that traditional currency can’t, then PART’s ability to accommodate a range of transaction types and use cases makes it even more valuable.In each of these ways, simply owning PART tokens generates additional income independent of increases in the market value of the tokens on an exchange.Last but not least, as noted above, PART serves as the utility coin on the Particl Platform. Sellers who use Particl Marketplace are always paid in PART tokens (even though buyers can use any cryptocurrency of their choice). In addition, like Ethereum, any decentralized application built on Particl’s platform will transact using PART which also goes to stakers.PART is therefore intrinsically linked to the Particl Platform. As the adoption of the overall platform grows, so does the value of PART.

If you want to make the case that cryptocurrencies have intrinsic value based on services they provide today, PART is a good subject to work with. More so than Bitcoin, PART derives its value from benefits that it provides to all token holders natively, on its own privacy platform. Owning PART is the furthest thing from speculating on tulip bulb futures (a historical blunder to which Dimon compared Bitcoin) as you can get.

On the latest episode of "The Crypto Show," Danny joins us from London after attending the Dash and Blockchain Conference. He informs of his experiences and personal encounters at that conference, as well as at the Nexus Conference which he attended earlier in Aspen, Colorado. We then discuss his upcoming relief trip to Mexico, as well as the prospect for using crypto for remittance payments. Daniel Krawisz, a.k.a., Scrooge McAltcoin, who is an upcoming speaker at the Texas Bitcoin conference, joins us to talk about ICOs and token coins, and then we finish the show talking about the government-as-cult. Fun episode!

AngelList,, the job board specializing in startup jobs, reports cryptocurrency job postings have nearly doubled in the past six months and are soon to triple from 2016. Companies in the crypto space have experienced “unparalleled investment and growth” in recent months. The organization stated that while many new technologies (self-driving cars and virtual reality, for example) are embraced by tech giants, cryptocurrency remains one of the largest non-corporate startup opportunities.

The data shows that investments are on the rise. Cryptocurrency startups collected more investments in the first two quarters of 2017 ($467 million) than they did in all of 2016 ($325 million). According to AngelList, as the companies in the crypto space grow, and raise larger amounts of funds at higher valuations, their need for new talent has also grown. The two main reasons for the crypto hiring boom are the expansions of both Bitcoin and Ethereum to a mainstream audience and the popularity of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).

In 2016, there were 442 cryptocurrency-related job postings on AngelList; however, the number of listings is projected to reach 1,255 by the end of 2017. The organization added that in the last six months, the number of job postings has nearly doubled. While experienced engineers in the crypto space are in the highest demand, startups are also looking for engineers with an interest in cryptocurrencies. There are also positions ready to be filled in the areas of marketing, business development, operations, customer support and other job functions in which no technical background is required.

The main reasons to join a cryptocurrency startup as either an employee or a team member include better salaries — up to 20 percent higher compared to the industry norm — more remote flexibility and employee liquidity in the form of tokens or coins, which is often an exclusive bonus offered at “new coin/token companies,” according to AngelList.

Preparing to Answer the Growing Demand for Talent

At a time when demand for crypto experts is on the rise, the blockchain and research development company IOHK hasannouncedthat the first cohort of its graduates has successfully completed training at the summer course hosted by IOHK, and are ready to start working within the crypto space and blockchain industry. IOHK plans to offer full-time positions to selected candidates from the training program in the firm’s newly created Athens Haskell Team.

IOHKoffered the summer course free of charge to computer science graduates in Athens, Greece. The participants were personally selected by the university professors. The course primarily focused on Haskell, a programming language currently in high demand within the crypto space because of the language’s significant security advantages. The summer course was a little more than two months long, hosted between July 17 and September 22.

“Corporations and financial institutions are increasingly seeking Haskell developers, but are faced with a shortage of skilled programmers. IOHK is delighted to have trained seven talented students into proficient Haskell developers. Building on IOHK’s growing legacy of sourcing and training high-quality programmers and engineers from Greece, we are proud to have made several offers of employment to them,” IOHK Chief Scientist Aggelos Kiayias said in a statement.

In addition to attending lectures presented by notables like Dr. Lars Brünjes, Haskell developer at IOHK, and Dr. Andres Löh of the Haskell consulting firm Well-Typed, the students had to complete assignments and programming projects, such as creating peer-to-peer networks and performing a “handshake” with a Bitcoin node.

IOHK is not the only firm offering blockchain courses for students. Blockchain software technology companyConsenSysrecently announced that the first developer program class ofConsenSys Academy, consisting of more than 150 blockchain developers, will be flying to Dubai for a “three-day hackathon” followed by a graduate ceremony on October 22, 2017. According to the organization, the class represents the first group of successful candidates out of 1,300 applicants from 95 different countries. ConsenSys’s goal with the Academy’s program is to address the global shortage of blockchain developers.

Enterprise blockchain providerGemis forging new partnerships in the healthcare sector. First announced at theDistributed: Health 2017conference in Nashville, Tennessee, earlier this week, the blockchain startup is teaming up with European technology service providerTietoas well as partnering with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“We fundamentally believe that data should not be centralized; it should exist at the edges where it already lives. Gem is partnering with Tieto and the CDC to build fluid systems of bridges and tunnels that connect relevant data at the time it’s needed,” Gem founder and CEO Micah Winkelspecht toldBitcoin Magazine.

Tieto

The growing interest in blockchain technology does not appear to be slowing down. As just about every industry is researching whether and how blockchains can help their operations, the healthcare sector is no exception. Distributed: Health, the world’s only healthcare-focused blockchain conference, welcomed over 700 attendees to Nashville this week.

Among the interested parties was Tieto, a major technology service provider in northern Europe, which typically works closely with several Scandinavian governments. The company provides software solutions for a range of public sector agencies, in domains like forestry, finance and education, as well as healthcare.

In Nashville, Gem and Tieto announced their new partnership in the exploration of how blockchain technology can benefit the tech giant. Emily Vaughn, head of accounts at Gem, and Maria Kumle, head of new offerings (Lifecare Solutions) at Tieto, presented a keynote address on Tuesday morning outlining the companies’ shared vision for the future of healthcare and how their partnership will build blockchain-based compliance solutions.

“Tieto has a pretty big vision for the future,” Winkelspecht toldBitcoin Magazineafter the presentation. “They believe in a shift from a provider-centric data model to a more citizen-centric data model. They think citizens should really be in control of their own data, where companies can leverage and use that data, if the user consents.”

Gem’s main product,GemOS, is a data collaboration platform to be deployed on blockchains like Ethereum and Hyperledger, a software stack to bridge the gaps between these blockchains’ enterprise-level applications. For Tieto, GemOS will be configured to connect different data silos, specifically Finnish blood banks and DNA registers.

Winkelspecht said:

“If, say, a life insurer needs access to your health records and that data is stored in 10 different locations, that insurer first needs to know what these locations are. Then it needs to demonstrate to all these locations that it has the rights to access this. And it should be able to pull them all down, to have availability to the data.”

Because this is still a very bureaucratic, slow and expensive process, Gem and Tieto believe they can streamline the localization and authorization of this data. While the different silos will remain siloed — the blood bank records and DNA registers won’t be stored on any blockchain — GemOS should provide the bridge to connect the relevant data where needed.

CDC

Prior to the conference, Gem also struck a recent deal with the CDC, the United States federal agency tasked with preventing the spread of disease.

The CDC is particularly interested in finding solutions to better manage population health data and, more specifically, data relevant for disaster response. This type of data is usually fed through several intermediaries, such as different local government bodies. And because this is still very much a manual process, getting the right information to the right departments can take weeks or even longer. This current level of inefficiency is of particular concern in emergency situations where time is of the essence.

On top of further automating their processes, the CDC thinks that blockchain technology may offer additional solutions. It has therefore already put together a 27-person blockchain development team and is also partnering with different blockchain providers, including Microsoft and IBM, in addition to Gem.

“The CDC wants to build a blockchain-based early-detection warning system for population health and other topics that they care about,” Winkelspecht explained. “Once again, we won’t put actual data on the blockchain, but what we’re trying to do is paint a clear, comprehensive picture of all the data that is available, with a validity check, a timestamp and a proof.”

These records should then be instantly available to other relevant parties in the disaster relief efforts, like doctors or pharmacies. Such real-time data-sharing solutions among parties could significantly benefit CDC’s mission, especially when it comes to contagious diseases.

Both the Tieto and CDC projects are still in early development phases. It could take another year before the projects are up and running.

Governments and central banks all over the world are gradually warming up to the idea of leveraging the unique advantages offered by blockchain technology — low-cost transactions permanently recorded in tamper-proof distributed ledgers — to modernize their financial systems.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the Indian government is considering a proposal to introduce its own cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin,Business Standardreportedlast week. The new cryptocurrency would be managed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and could be called “Lakshmi.” Other central banks are exploring similar ideas.

Of course, that will take time, and the governments are unlikely to support important features that make Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies appealing to end users, such as mining and near-anonymous, paperwork-free transactions. Therefore, Bitcoin, Ethereum and at least some altcoins are likely to continue to prosper.

But some governments, such as China’s, don’t seem to like that. After banning Initial Coin Offerings (ICO), the Chinese governmentis movingto close the cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the country.

It appears that governments love blockchain technology but hate Bitcoin itself, as well as other “crypto-anarchic” digital currencies. Some governments are reacting in a panic because they are starting to realize that they can’t stop Bitcoin from becoming an alternative to their monopoly on currency, both as a means of exchange and a store of value. Centralized cryptocurrency exchanges are especially vulnerable, and other governments could follow China.

A Role for Decentralized Exchanges

Decentralized exchanges that use peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to bypass the need for a central exchange provider are an interesting option that could make blockchain-based digital currencies much more resilient.

Decred recently introducedatomic swap support for exchange-free cryptocurrency trading, showing that, at least for crypto-to-crypto trading (for example, exchanging bitcoin for litecoin), it’s perfectly possible to operate without exchanges. However, this doesn’t solve the problem of crypto-to-fiat and fiat-to-crypto trading, which is arguably of top concern for cryptocurrency users.

“Atomic swaps are the first sign in a new wave of decentralization,” Decred project lead Jake Yocom-Piatt toldBitcoin Magazine. “As trustless exchanges between pairs of cryptocurrencies, they offer new efficiencies for users who don’t need the formality of the traditional exchanges. It is going to be interesting to see how the trend develops, since for larger and more complex transactions with fiat currencies, LocalBitcoins and established exchanges are still the place to be.”

Coinffeineis developing an open-source, P2P Bitcoin exchange platform that will enable users to buy and sell bitcoins securely and anonymously, without having to rely on a centralized exchange. The project seems promising, but it hasn’t shown much activity recently.

Bisq(formerly Bitsquare) provides an open-source desktop application that allows users to buy and sell bitcoins anonymously in exchange for national currencies or alternative crypto currencies. To protect users from fraud, both traders are required to place security deposits into a multisig-based escrow mechanism; the deposits are refunded after a trade completes. To handle disputes, Bisq features a decentralized and open arbitrator system. Bisq is nowpreparing to launcha decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and an ICO for itsBSQ token, acolored coinon the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin Magazinereached out to Bisq developer Chris Beams for comments on government attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges, likely attack vectors and the impact of decentralized exchanges. Beams also offered a passionate and forceful defense of individual liberty against government over-interference.

“The panic has to set in at some point,” argued Beams. “But it will do so at different times for different governments, and will produce a range of responses from them when it does. I don’t think China’s recent actions — whether they’re the product of panic or something more strategic — will necessarily cascade into similar actions in the U.S. or Europe. Shuttering all exchanges by diktat is the kind of textbook totalitarianism the world has come to expect from China, but a similar attack wouldn’t work as well in the U.S. Even if it would, it would be a blunder for the U.S. to attack Bitcoin with such a blunt instrument. It would be suboptimal, a bad use of available resources. It would strengthen the decentralized exchanges that already exist and it would incentivize the creation of better, even more censorship-resistant ones.”

According to Beams, the U.S. in particular has much more effective tools at its disposal, especially Know Your Customer (KYC). The U.S. government forces nearly every centralized exchange, on day one of operation, to collect personal identity information about their users and to correlate trading activity with those identities.

Beams explained that U.S. corporations tend to take compliance seriously and actually do cooperate with these rules, meaning that U.S. regulatory agencies have, in principle at least, access to enough information to de-anonymize a large and growing percentage of all Bitcoin transactions. And plausible traceability of transactions is all they need to keep the threat of tax collection in force.

“If I were the U.S., I’d be ushering new Bitcoiners through the Coinbase cattle gate just as fast as they can be prodded,” said Beams. “If I were the U.S., I would have long since concluded there’s nothing fundamental I can do to stop Bitcoin itself, so if I can’t beat ’em, I’ll at least make sure I can continue to tax ’em.”

Decentralization and Freedom

The recentJohn Doe summonsdelivered to Coinbase by the IRS shows that KYC is the attack vector of choice for the U.S., which could result in billions in taxes reported by people who fear that their Bitcoin activity can be audited. KYC appears to be a much more effective long-term attack vector than heavy-handed shutdown orders.

“So yes, by all means, let’s bring on the decentralized exchanges,” said Beams. “But they’d better be really and truly decentralized because if a government can stop them, they will — at least once they get big enough to become worth the effort. The attack vector with decentralized exchanges won’t be KYC, though, because any decentralized exchange that implements KYC will instantly be abandoned by its users.”

The attack vector for decentralized exchanges, said Beams, will be “the good ole four horsemen of the infocalypse.” In other words, decentralized exchanges will be vilified as tools for drug dealers, terrorists, pedophiles and money launderers.

“It’s the same script every time a government is interested in talking people out of their own freedoms. This attack vector won’t work for the exchanges that have achieved escape velocity levels of decentralization, but it may stop some and will make life difficult for others.”

Beams suggested that the only way to really stop decentralized crypto-fiat exchanges would be to outlaw Bitcoin trading altogether. “This would force people to think twice about every trade, and to consider whether their counterparty might be an agent, which would result in a profound chilling effect.”

However, he thinks that this sort of heavy-handed attack seems unlikely to be attempted in the U.S. or Europe because there are just too many vested interests in Bitcoin now. It’s more likely that the authorities will continue to insist on KYC, tolerate compliant centralized exchanges and demonize the decentralized ones.

“With all that having been said, I’m actually optimistic,” concluded Beams. “Attacks by state actors — real and threatened — are making every part of this ecosystem stronger. Bitcoin has proven itself anti-fragile as hell thus far, and by the time all the battles have been waged, what will emerge on the other side are alternatives to existing financial institutions — money, banks, exchanges and all the rest — that are actually better in every way than their traditional counterparts.

“We are being forced by the threat of state violence to design crypto-economic systems with the highest degrees of security, privacy and censorship resistance baked in from the protocol level up. That very pressure is what is propelling these solutions forward, I think, into a bright future of genuine financial freedom for people. I wouldn’t be working on this stuff if I thought otherwise.”

Venture capital firmSPiCE VCis announcing today the launch of the first ICO for a “Liquid VC” fund that will use the Bancor protocol to offer immediate liquidity to investors. The fund is open to pre-qualified investors according to specific country regulations. In the U.S., the relevant regulation isRegulation D, Rule 506(c).

“While equity crowdsourcing brought startup investments to the public, we are hoping that SPiCE with its liquidity and inclusivity will bring more people to investing in a venture capital fund, taking the portfolio approach, and avoiding the inherent risk of investing into a single startup or ICO,” said Carlos Domingo, co-founder and managing partner of SPiCE and aformer CEO of Telefonica R&D.

SPiCE wants to leverage blockchain technology to disrupt the venture capital industry with regulatory-compliant, tradable securities tokens that entitle holders to 100 percent of net exit revenues. The Ethereum-based SPiCE token will act as a digital security, assuring that token holders get their share of the exits when they occur, and a tradable asset.

SPiCE advisers includeBrendan Eich, inventor of JavaScript and co-founder of Mozilla and Brave, which launched theBasic Attention TokenICO; Eyal Hertzog, co-founder of Metacafe and co-founder and architect ofBancor; and entrepreneur Loïc Le Meur, co-founder of LeWeb. SPiCE is also partnering with theAragon Network, a digital jurisdictional platform for decentralized organizations based on digital tokens.

“We are excited about SPiCE’s decision to utilize the Bancor protocol to add liquidity to its security token,” said Hertzog. “The extreme efficiency that blockchain and smart contracts technologies enable resulted in a volume of ICO crowdfunding for blockchain companies that has surpassed traditional early stage VC investment, and now with SPiCE VC, this revolution is coming for the funding of VCs themselves.”

“For me joining SPiCE VC was a no-brainer, after being in the tech industry for more than twenty years, this is the most exciting project with the best team that I have been working in my entire career,” Domingo told Bitcoin Magazine.

In March of 2017, Blockchain Capitallauncheda similar liquidity-enhanced venture capital fund called Blockchain Capital III: a combination of a traditional limited partnership and the Ethereum-based BCAP digital token. According to Brock Pierce, the fund provides “the investor base across the globe with the opportunity to invest into a leading venture fund via a liquid, tradable, digital token.”

"SPiCE is building on the pioneering work of Brock Pierce for Blockchain Capital and taking it to the next level by providing a mechanism for our token holders to have a direct economic interest in our fund rather, than an indirect one as in the Blockchain Capital case,” said Domingo.

“In their case, Blockchain Capital uses part of the exit proceedings to buy tokens on the open market to raise their price so token holders can sell them, while SPiCE transfers the money of the proceedings from exiting startups directly to our token holders via buybacks from them directly and not the open market. This way, we have less dependency on the liquidity level of tokens for the token holders to benefit. Also, to increase liquidity from the beginning, we are implementing the Bancor smart reserve.”

Domingo also said that whereas Blockchain Capital is an evergreen fund that reinvests up to 100 percent of all exit proceedings back into the fund, SPiCE is a closed ended fund that will be returning 100 percent of the proceedings form the exits to the token holders.

“We are very excited about how advances in blockchain technology can actually solve one of the major problems of investing in VC funds, having your investment tied into the fund for 7–10 years before you can see any returns,” Domingo said. “We also believe that this increased liquidity will bring inclusivity as well, and will open up the option to invest in VC funds to a new breed of investors that have been left out of this asset class till SPiCE VC appeared.”

The SPiCE fund will invest in promising pre-series-A and pre-ICO technology startups, bridging the gap between seed funding from angels or incubators, and the first-series-A or ICO funding round. “SPiCE VC will focus on companies in that gap, either pre-series-A or pre-ICO, because once a company crosses the chasm, it achieves the fastest growth in valuation, which SPiCE investors may benefit from via its liquidity,” notes the announcement.

Throughout the weekend and continuing into the early week, BTC-USD saw a strong rally that brought the price from $3500s to prices in the high $4100s, at the time of writing. Amid global turmoil and Chinese news that initially appeared to be bearish, BTC-USD has seemingly found its bottom and is now working its way onward and upward. Here is a look at the current state of the market and what we can expect in the coming days:

At the time of this article, BTC-USD is encountering resistance along the 61% macro retracement values. Resistance at these values is expected to be strong because it had found previously strong support during the beginning stages of the previous bear run. It’s not expected to make a clean break, so a possible, small retracement may pull the market back slightly before continuing upward. Even though we may see a slight pullback, it was very clear that the market is now leaning bullish:

The market is currently finding support on the 6-hour candle’s 200 and 50 EMAs. Typically, when the market is trending below the 200 EMA it is said to be “bearish,” and when the market is trending above the 200 EMA it said to be “bullish.”

The current market trend is pushing the price to new local highs. A trend that brings new highs shows a changing of tides as the bears begin to capitulate and the bulls begin to take over.

On our current rise, the volume is increasing. When the volume increases within the trend, it shows there is strength in the current direction and is likely to continue.

The 6-hour MACD is showing no signs of divergence and every new high is being accompanied with new highs on the MACD histogram. Currently the macro trend is showing strength with bullish momentum.

If we zoom into a small timeframe and look at the 2-hour candle trend, we can see a similar, bullish sentiment beginning to form:Figure 2: BTC-USD, 2-Hour Candles, GDAX, EMA Cross

Inside the rectangle within Figure 2, we can see that the 200 and 50 EMAs have crossed and are now showing a positive slope with their curves. Historically, the 200 and 50 EMAs for the 2-hour candles have been a great indicator as to the immediate health of the market.

If a bear market makes a strong enough move upward and the 50 EMA crosses the 200 EMA to the top, this market activity is sometimes referred to as a “Golden Cross.” It’s called a Golden Cross because it is a strong market indicator that usually shows the turning of the tides as the bearish traders give way to the bullish traders.

Although there may be some pullback before we climb any higher, we have strong support in the $4100s so it wouldn’t be surprising if we made a test of that support level before climbing onward.

The $4100s also coincides with the 38% retracement. The 38% retracement is a very common retracement value within strong bull runs. Markets rarely make decisive, healthy moves in a singular direction. Often, they take a stair-step type of trend that moves up, retraces, moves up, retraces, ettc. The 38% can be seen as the first stair within our current bull market.

Summary:

BTC-USD managed to make a new high and break the multi-week long descending trendline.

BTC-USD is showing macro trend strength but will likely see a little pullback before continuing higher.

If we do see a pullback, we can expect strong support in the $4100s.

Trading and investing in digital assets like bitcoin, bitcoin cash and ether is highly speculative and comes with many risks. This analysis is for informational purposes and should not be considered investment advice. Statements and financial information on Bitcoin Magazine and BTC Media related sites do not necessarily reflect the opinion of BTC Media and should not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation to buy, sell or hold. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.